


and if the answer is no (can i change my mind)

by seventhstar



Series: The Order of the Seventh Star [2]
Category: The Dresden Files - All Media Types, The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher, Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, M/M, Mistrust, denarian!barians, what if tomos was even more distressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 09:30:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4430177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhstar/pseuds/seventhstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"His skin is pale and smooth, and his hair is dark and soft, and he has a scar under his right collarbone that he has always had, for as long as Durbe has known him. Durbe knows all this, and that the hollow of his throat is sensitive and he’s too gentle in bed and that the people he hires rarely betray him, and yet it has been centuries and Durbe does not understand him."</p>
<p>Denarians Durbe and Nasch have a complicated relationship. Durbe's not sure he dislikes it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and if the answer is no (can i change my mind)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rangerhitomi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/gifts).



> Part II of this zexal/dresden files fusion fic.

He’s soft.

Durbe lies in bed beside Nasch in their hotel room, the covers pushed down around their waist; the ambient noise of the air conditioner irritates them both, so they’ve chosen to go without, and the Las Vegas heat is oppressive.

Nasch tolerates it better than he does. When a man is as old as he is, it’s hard to gauge what that means, whether it’s part of his affinity for water magic or if he’s spent a lot of time in hot climates or if he’s simply more tolerant of the heat that Durbe, born in the mountains, is.

His skin is pale and smooth, and his hair is dark and soft, and he has a scar under his right collarbone that he has always had, for as long as Durbe has known him. Durbe knows all this, and that the hollow of his throat is sensitive and he’s too gentle in bed and that the people he hires rarely betray him, and yet it has been centuries and Durbe does not understand him.

And Durbe does not understand himself, anymore. And he hates mysteries.

So he is here, tonight, having brought Nasch onto a personal project he didn’t need him on. Last week, Durbe saw an opening, a chance to strike, and take Anduriel.

But he would have had to kill Nasch. And he hesitated.

There is no reason for him to have hesitated. Durbe can do more with Anduriel than he could with Ordiel. He doesn’t need Nasch.

Does he? Durbe prides himself on absolute truth with himself. He doesn’t have any illusions, about anything.

He looks down at Nasch, who has the confidence to fall asleep beside him naked and relatively unarmed.

_Apparently I do._

He thinks about it. It isn’t unusual; Nasch is good at getting people attached to him. It’s something that Durbe doesn’t think his fellow Denarians quite realize, because Nasch is so much more powerful than they are and because Nasch is not particularly friendly.

But he inspires loyalty. It’s not a quality Durbe usually appreciates — loyalty has never served him well — but in Nasch, it interests him.

People just don’t betray him. Even the Knights have a grudging respect for him. He restrains himself, in ways that the others don’t, and something about that restraint is mistaken for compassion.

Or is compassion. With Nasch, Durbe finds it’s hard to tell.

Foolish. Durbe brushes a strand of hair out of Nasch’s face. Even now, he still looks like royalty.

Nasch cracks open one eye.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Durbe shrugs. He lays his palm flat over Nasch’s chest; the heartbeat underneath is slow and steady. Durbe could push down, break all his ribs.

He could try, anyways.

“Where do you keep the coin?” he asks. He can tell Nasch still has it, but he has no idea where. His clothes are lying on the floor somewhere.

Nasch doesn’t answer, but the corner of his mouth turns up very slightly.

A human body can only host one Fallen at a time, so Durbe will have to drop his coin before he can go for Nasch’s. And in the moment he drops his own, he will be vulnerable. Is it too risky?

“He’s around,” Nasch says.

Durbe’s neck is suddenly cold. He looks down and sees Nasch’s inky black shadow reaching around his throat, delicately. He’s not applying any pressure, but the threat is clear.

Nasch looks at him, assessing him. He could snap Durbe’s head off, and Durbe knows it.

The shadow slips away, blending back into the darkness of the room.

“You’re not that stupid,” Nasch says.

“Of course not,” Durbe agrees. He drags his palm over Nasch’s heart. “You should sleep.”

“You still haven’t told me what we’re doing here.”

“You’ll understand tomorrow.” He’ll understand that this mission is a small personal project Durbe arranged for information gathering, and to have Nasch in this hotel room to himself for a few hours. He doesn’t need Nasch, really, although Nasch will certainly make it easier. Anduriel’s shadowy abilities are perfect for espionage.

“Besides,” Durbe says, “you seemed…idle.”

Nasch hadn’t been doing anything when Durbe arrived at headquarters. He’d been sitting on the roof and staring at the stars. This wasn’t unusual for Nasch, but he’d been doing it more of late. Durbe isn’t concerned, exactly…

…well, he is a little concerned. He wouldn’t be for any of the others; he thinks maybe the secret is that if it were him, Nasch might be concerned in return. That promise of support is powerful.

“I’ve been thinking.”

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

“Shut up.” Nasch shifts. “What do you believe in?”

“What?”

“Why do you do this?”

Durbe blinks. “You’re asking about my principles?”

“Didn’t think you had any.”

“Just the one.” The truth, cold and hard, at all costs. “Why am I a Denarian? Why do I want the world to end?”

“Yeah.”

“I could ask you the same question.” Durbe shrugs.

Nasch is silent for a moment. “I started hosting Anduriel when I was fourteen.”

Durbe was twenty-five when he took up his coin. He remembers that Nasch and Merag were young when he found them (or they found him); he doesn’t know how young.

Now he wonders. He was a squire at fourteen.

“He...made an impression,” Nasch says.

Durbe understands that well enough. He considers. “Do you believe in good and evil?”

“What, that they exist,” Nasch asks, “or that there’s a difference?”

“Both.”

“Sometimes.”

“I don’t.”

“Mm.” Nasch nods.

Durbe sees something ripple in the darkness out of the corner of his eye. He tenses, but the movement stops immediately when he turns his head. He’s never seen Nasch in his Denarian form, such is Anduriel’s power.

Nasch and Merag found him months after he’d abandoned his kingdom. He was traveling, Ordiel’s voice in his ear, trying to decide what his place in the world would be. They had information about him. They had a plan. They’d told him they wanted him in their organization.

Durbe doesn’t know how Merag and Nasch got their coins, only that it was bloody. Vector knows the story, but he isn’t inclined to share. He knows that they recruited him because they saw something in them, and the three of them had wreaked so much havoc after that that other Denarians had found them.

That’s the story he knows. Whatever drives Nasch, whatever quality he has that holds people, was set in place by then.

“Fourteen is young to have a coin.”

“The youngest Knight is thirteen.”

“You and I both know that what is required of us and what is required of them is…” Durbe shrugs.

“Age doesn’t have anything to do with who gets what.”

“I suppose not.” Durbe tries again. “Vector tells me it’s a quite a story.”

“Vector doesn’t tell you anything.” Nasch hits him lightly. “Quit fishing.”

Durbe grins, despite himself. There’s no real subtle way to ask. “How did you get the coin?”

“Violently.”

“You know how I got mine.”

“You killed two thousand people with it. It wasn’t like you made it hard.”

He can keep pushing, but Nasch is smiling a little again. Durbe decides to spare his dignity and let it pass.

“Keep your secrets, then.” Durbe moves to lie down beside him again.

The room seems darker.

“What, you woke me up to ask me stupid questions?” Nasch asks. His shoulders brushes against Durbe’s. “You can ask Vector if you really want to know.”

“Vector will lie.”

“Tch.”

Durbe stares at the ceiling. “You wouldn’t waste your breath. If you were going to tell me, you would tell me the truth.”

He wants Nasch to tell him he’d lie, because that would be the smart thing to do. Nasch doesn’t say anything at all.

Their shoulders are still touching. Durbe finds himself fixating on the contact. Maybe the problem is that, that he has certain desires and he’s using Nasch to meet them instead of someone ignorant and safe, someone Durbe could use up and kill if needed. But that would be boring, Durbe thinks ruefully, and unsatisfying.

He nudges Nasch back.

“As long as we’re both awake,” he says pointedly. He blinks and it isn’t his imagination; the room is getting darker. “Is that deliberate?”

He can imagine the sharklike smirk Nasch must be wearing as the room blacks out. Durbe could cast a spell to light the room, or just to enhance his night vision, or let Ordiel out and use his eyes to see.

He could, but then Nasch would know that he unnerves Durbe, and Durbe refuses to be afraid.

“If you’re worried about your modesty,” he says, reaching up and finding Nasch above him, straddling him so that no part of him is touching Durbe (yet), “it’s too late.”

“Quiet,” Nasch says; there’s no force behind it at all, but Durbe obeys.

He settles on top of Durbe, his knees spread over Durbe’s hips, his forearms braced against Durbe’s chest. Durbe feels a thumb brush over his collarbone; the skin burns even when Nasch’s hand moves away.

Nasch licks a long, wet stripe down Durbe’s throat, right over the pulse point — Durbe is proud of how slowly his heart is beating — and he’s so close that Durbe can smell the hotel shampoo.

He reaches up and feels along Nasch’s back, over the sharp point of his shoulder blade and lower. Down, over the scar along his lower back that Durbe doesn’t know the story behind. He digs his nails into Nasch’s ass.

Nasch makes a soft sound that might be a laugh.

Durbe keeps quiet.

+++++

When he wakes up Nasch is gone. A manila envelope with his name across it in Nasch’s slanted handwriting is lying on the nightstand; the curtains have been drawn to reveal a bright blue sky. Durbe shakes off the last of the sleeping spell — very subtle work, definitely not Nasch’s, something to investigate — and opens his third eye.

The envelope is just that, under his Sight. There are three sets of coordinates listed and a few lines. At the bottom of the page Nasch has burned into the paper his crest.

_Durbe,_

_Your coordinates. I’d forget about the first set; the woods are deserted, but it’s dragon territory. Report back to headquarters when you’ve collected the coins._

_Nasch_

He runs his fingers over the words. So Nasch knew Durbe was investiagting a rival group of Denarians, a recent alliance of young nad stupid humans with silver in hand, and already completed the mission.

He didn’t know about the dragons. Durbe scowls at his own incompetence. He can’t afford any more deadly mistakes, not with Nasch around giving him orders and being kind and making him like it.

But he has bruises on his shoulders where Nasch bit down, and they sit there, dark and sweetly sore when he presses down on him. Durbe casts a glamour to hide them, then removes it. It’s no good lying to himself.

_I want you,_ he thinks, and he toys with his coin.


End file.
